Long-Distance Calls

36

Dear Future, before I tell you about that dreaded afternoon at my aunt and uncle's, I should probably tell you about the morning of that same day.

Mom forced me to go to school, that morning. She insisted I couldn't miss yet another day.

But I didn't feel like going to school. The last thing I needed was school. That place hated me, and I hated that place. Not one friend, not one familiar face. Only hostile looks all over the place.

As soon as I got there, and I was walking in the hallways to get to the first class, Andrew crossed my path.

"Hey, Peter," he called me. I ignored him and approached the classroom's door, but he put a hand on my shoulder, stopping me from entering.

The frustration building up inside me was just too much, so I turned around and pushed him, making him lose balance and almost fall to the ground. "Not now, Andrew," I sentenced.

"I was just wondering how you're feeling," he said, regaining his composure, "I heard about Tyler..."

I felt my eyes watering, so I looked away from him and entered the class, leaving him behind me.

Amber was in that class. I could feel her looking at me, from time to time. I think sometimes she even tried to talk to me, but stopped before words could come out of her mouth.

I had the confirmation of that when, after class, she came running after me. "Peter, wait," she shouted as she tried to reach me. I was walking faster on purpose.

At one point, I felt her cold hand on my wrist. I stopped and pushed it away. "Bitch, get off me," I said, "I told you we're done. And spare me the crap about my cousin. I don't need your stupid pity."

And I just walked away, leaving her standing speechless behind me too.

Evelyn texted me three times on that morning. The first was "how are you feeling?" to which I replied "not too great". Then she asked if she could call me that afternoon, and I said no because I had stuff to do. And then she simply texted an "I miss you".

So that brings me to the afternoon. My mom and I were at my aunt and uncle's, the house where Tyler grew up. I have no idea how my aunt and my uncle still lived in that house now, surrounded by frames containing old pictures of Tyler as a child, and some as a teenager too.

There was a little model of a bike on a shelf, and I remembered him usually grabbing it and letting me play with it when I was a child, also warning me not to break it because it was important to him. And I was indeed careful not to break it, while I still enjoyed fantasizing crazy adventures with it around the house. That little bike was like my promise to him, and I never broke it. Not even once. Just like he always kept his word with me. Until now.

Anyway, that's the only memory I have of him in his house, and it's a pretty big one. I can't imagine how many memories his parents had. How every single object in that house reminded them of something he did and/or said in his twenty-two short years of life, and every single time they'd try to forget, or rather, not to think, something around them took them back to reality.

I could only imagine how much they wanted to run away from that house and go hide somewhere else, somewhere impossible, away from everything real.

So, this officer came into the house, and announced they'd closed all investigations.

"Okay," my uncle said, scratching his thick grey beard, "so what's the conclusion?"